Kids in the kitchen, big and small!

Its raining, its pouring....... 

10 June 2013

Pic Courtesy of Taste.com

Bugger..there goes the idea of a picnic by the lake, flying the kite, flopping around on the picnic blanket whilst laying out a spread of fresh baguette, luxury mayo, calabrese salami, Jarlsberg cheese & rocket.....sigh....... OK  so with a little tweaking we have decided to picnic inside, with all the soft toys we can muster, the tea party gear and freshly made Jumble Bumbles....

MM (mr morsel) is home for the public holiday, and deciding to be a family event, we all had our own part of the biscuit recipe to follow. Keeping in mind that LML ('lil miss morsel) is 4 yrs, and quite handy in the kitchen (apart from touching everything, wanting to lick every spoon, vessel and finger). Now us big kids have done our fair share of cooking together, we ran our own boutique bakery for 5 years and worked along side each other making slices, biscuits, bread, pies cakes and whatever else you find within a bakery cabinet, long hours and challenges; life was never dull. (this story is for another time and place)

We worked hard, proudly produced a heap of variety along with a mixer full of stress running a 24/7 business. So I find it amazing to be a part of an argument over how to soften the butter to cream together with sugar...even LML said "daddy...mummy's right y'know" (God love her). A self admitted control freak is he, however in the kitchen its MY RULES or get out....so I did...LOL 

There obviously comes a time when you have to choose your battles, know when to make an acceptable exit from an obvious 'too many cooks' syndrome. That's fine, because he rarely gets the opportunity to see how well LML measures, sifts and mixes, cracks eggs and gets involved (besides from washing her hands in the flour) and me being 7 months ready to hatch it really is FINE to sit back and quietly observe without any fuss. Deciding on boy & girl cookie cutter shapes the mixing, rolling out cutting and baking is now done. (just with a few mishaps from not reading the recipe..) Now its time to ice the Jumbles complete with pink and blue dusting sand..oh what fun to watch from a camera distance...heheeh.

boys n girls cooling off

Face Painting & baking on a rainy day

Patience is a virtue when baking with little people, you have to have eyes in the back, sides and front of your head and predict every possible situation that may arise out of simply asking to pass the flour... Let them shine, let them make mistakes and have some fun, don't scare them off because they cracked the egg on the floor instead of in the bowl, look the other way when mixture goes in the mouth instead of on the tray. Develop & enrich their sense of achievement and see how proud they are to have made cookies ("all by myself..").
From the silence in the kitchen apart from the crunch crunch sound, it is all looking good, I just have to remember to keep out of the way until its all done (including cleaned up and put away)

See? Along with choosing your battles comes the spoils of; not having to clean my/ their mess up, having broken bits of freshly made cookie ferried over for sampling and seeing my favourite people have some fun in the kitchen.

Time for that coffee I so richly deserve from keeping my distance and keeping my mouth shut except however to sample fresh made jumble bumbles.

Recipe Link
Taste.com